Why Hard-Coded?

I have a silly question Why there are some things hard-coded in the game? By "hard-coded" do you mean they are hard to modify, or the term "hard" refers to something else?

Anyway, let's say that someone has huge skills in programing and stuff like this... Could he modify the game by his own will? Cause if that is possible, i'll go right now to a software school or something like that, learn al the programing stuff in the world, and the i'll create my own game.

Sorry for the silly topic, but this curiosity is killing me!!!

I would think that's illegal.

Anyway, let's say that someone has huge skills in programing and stuff like this... Could he modify the game by his own will? Cause if that is possible, i'll go right now to a software school or something like that, learn al the programing stuff in the world, and the i'll create my own game.

I'm not sure but I think that's called a career, and I assume you can do anything with this game if you like, but you can't distribute your changes without the express permission of Sports Interactive along with AFC Wimbledon.

Originally posted by hersch:

I have a silly question Why there are some things hard-coded in the game? By "hard-coded" do you mean they are hard to modify, or the term "hard" refers to something else?

"Hard coded" - not able to be altered within the application.

Anyway, let's say that someone has huge skills in programing and stuff like this... Could he modify the game by his own will? Cause if that is possible, i'll go right now to a software school or something like that, learn al the programing stuff in the world, and the i'll create my own game.

He could modify it, but as mentioned earlier there are legal implications in doing so. Also - the game is compiled, so you can't see the source code that actually goes into the game itself.

ok, thaks dudes! i don't want to modify the game so i can sell it... i only want to modify it for me!

i don't want to modify the game so i can sell it... i only want to modify it for me!

Thats why the game comes with an editor so you can modify things yourself. About the only thing you cant modify with the editor that you might actually want to would be the league rules. What exactly is it that you want to change that you currently cant?

Hard-Coded is stuff in the code of the program that cannot be changed unless you re-compile that .exe file.

Soft-Coded is things in the code that relate to an outside variable. Outside variables being the database you can edit.

As a computer programmer myself I'd love to be able to have the skills to make a game like FM, but I would have no idea where to start, and I'm only one person. I'm guessing the team behind FM contains tens? hundreds? of coders (that's excluding the research people).

And if you just want to modify a few things, try the editor. If you want to modify anything else, then a) what is it? and b) maybe suggest it for the next version...

Certain things like leagues, league structures, tiebreak rules, competition rules, competition structure, I think those types of things are hard coded.

what do i want to modify?

e.g.

1. i want to create my own league. with it's own rules... i want to play i some kind of an amateur league, where the winner or runners up are not playing in european cups, a league where is no promotion or relegation. i know it's spund stupid or boring, but for me is not. there is no specific reason why i want to do this, it's just a personal options or wish

2. modify some unreal league rules.

3. in my current game, in 2026, the last day of the euro cup group stage is played on the 26 th of december :| very unreal!!! and it seem that this match day is pushed by the game further and further in time, every year!!!! what will happen in 2050??? everyone else here who had this problem?

4. just for curiosity...

thanks for your answers!

Originally posted by Sir_Liam:

I would think that's illegal.

I wouldn't. Once you buy the game, you are free to do with it as you wish. Distributing is as your "own game" is a problem, but he said he would "Create his own game" - which is entirely legal.

As for "Hard-Coded". They are basically things in the game that you can not change, via any editor or external program.

Originally posted by NepentheZ:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sir_Liam:

I would think that's illegal.

I wouldn't. Once you buy the game, you are free to do with it as you wish. Distributing is as your "own game" is a problem, but he said he would "Create his own game" - which is entirely legal.

As for "Hard-Coded". They are basically things in the game that you can not change, via any editor or external program. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Disassembling or reverse-engineering software is usually illegal in the UK, i think. I believe it mentions this specifically as forbidden in the license agreement, which removes any shred of doubt.

I would imagine they have taken measures to prevent easy decompilation into clean code, but then, even with the code in front of you, it would probably take weeks to understand what it all did.

In any case, it would be useless to anyone who wasn't fluent in C++.

Originally posted by NepentheZ:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sir_Liam:

I would think that's illegal.

I wouldn't. Once you buy the game, you are free to do with it as you wish. Distributing is as your "own game" is a problem, but he said he would "Create his own game" - which is entirely legal.

As for "Hard-Coded". They are basically things in the game that you can not change, via any editor or external program. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You'd be wrong there i'm afraid, you aren't fere to do with it as you wish.

card coded means that its set to a specific value in code and doesn't change when something else is changed.

for example if on the 1st jan 2007 i hardcoded my program to say

"search for everything in year 2007"

that would continue to search for everything in the year 2007 even if we were now in 2008.

Originally posted by NepentheZ:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sir_Liam:

I would think that's illegal.

I wouldn't. Once you buy the game, you are free to do with it as you wish. Distributing is as your "own game" is a problem, but he said he would "Create his own game" - which is entirely legal.

As for "Hard-Coded". They are basically things in the game that you can not change, via any editor or external program. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

i think he would have to modify the executable which would be illigal.

Why is it illegal to create new leagues(from other countries), adjust how many people will be seating on the bench each game, or do whatever is illegal?

We can make London have only 5 citizens, which I doubt the UK government would like to see ever happen, we can swap teams in competitions, which I doubt some of them would want to happen, we can swap competitions themselves(like remove all teams and swap them with an inactive league just to play it, and then we can download it from somewhere(for free of course) since not all are bothered to try and do it. So why some features are uneditable and some are?

Many stuff that people would like to "mess around with" are not copyrighted, so why can't it be in the editor?

eg, I want to create 20 teams with no players but that are loaded with cash, that will not interfere with the game database directly, and I can't since there's no such option. I don't see how such thing would be against the law.

Originally posted by Booooooom:

Why is it illegal to create new leagues(from other countries), adjust how many people will be seating on the bench each game, or do whatever is illegal?

We can make London have only 5 citizens, which I doubt the UK government would like to see ever happen, we can swap teams in competitions, which I doubt some of them would want to happen, we can swap competitions themselves(like remove all teams and swap them with an inactive league just to play it, and then we can download it from somewhere(for free of course) since not all are bothered to try and do it. So why some features are uneditable and some are?

Many stuff that people would like to "mess around with" are not copyrighted, so why can't it be in the editor?

eg, I want to create 20 teams with no players but that are loaded with cash, that will not interfere with the game database directly, and I can't since there's no such option. I don't see how such thing would be against the law.

The stuff in the editor you can mess around with to your hearts content because SI have provided you the tools to modify it. The other stuff you cannot edit because it would require you to modify the game code (or change a compiled exe) which you are not allowed to do. What you change the game data to is not illegal, it's what you have to do to the game to make the change that's illegal.

If this stuff was made editable through the editor, then you would be free to edit it. The reason it's not editable is down to the difficulty of making it editable. Things like league structures are extremely complicated and making it user editable would mean that the game would have to cope with whetever weird and wonderful league structures any user could possibly come up with.

Originally posted by bigdunk:

Things like league structures are extremely complicated and making it user editable would mean that the game would have to cope with whetever weird and wonderful league structures any user could possibly come up with.

Well.. it's not THAT complicated, they could easily make it editable. But I see your point.. Some leagues would be absolutely insane...

Originally posted by Canabary:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by bigdunk:

Things like league structures are extremely complicated and making it user editable would mean that the game would have to cope with whetever weird and wonderful league structures any user could possibly come up with.

Well.. it's not THAT complicated, they could easily make it editable. But I see your point.. Some leagues would be absolutely insane... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's more complicated than you would think. Just take, for example, fixture scheduling - the game would have to be able to cope with scheduling fixtures for any number of leagues, cup competitions, european competitions etc all running at the same time for a set of clubs. In real life, English clubs need fixtures scheduling for the league, up to 3 cup competitions, and a european competition. If you could edit this structure, you could easily add more competitions, change the number of teams in each one, change the qualification rules and so on, and the game would still have to generate a correct schedule for each club. The game still struggles now to do this perfectly when it knows upfront all these settings for each club, imagine how much more complicated it would have to be to work if these settings could be changed at will.

the more editable stuff there is the harder it is to test and debug.

If you have lots of time on your hands (around several months), then you can decompile Football Manager and then if you're really bored, you can actually figure out which parts correspond to what and then modify and recompile the code.

Of course, good luck figuring out what this does in terms of the game:

function _1(_2 _3, _4 _5) { return _6(_3, _5)+_5; }

This is why you have to be very bored and have lots of time on your hands.

There are some things best left untinkerable by end-users (see the concepts of encapsulation) and hence some things are best left hard-coded.

I wouldn't. Once you buy the game, you are free to do with it as you wish.

I don't think thats true. Why would NO-CD Cracks be illegal if you could do as you wish? As far as I know, it is illegal to modify the game exe.

When you buy the game, you're only acquiring a license to use it

tis true... current laws state you cannot modify the .exe of the game... hence decompiling and modifying the code is illegal...

as for learning to code/ program/ write whatever you want to call it...

(i prefer to call it software engineer as thats what i do and i get more money then a code monkey ) ..

I'd highly recommend you begin with a more basic language... say scripting, or even (where i started years ago ) BASIC .. easy to learn and can do suprisingly complex things with...

Originally posted by welshace:

tis true... current laws state you cannot modify the .exe of the game... hence decompiling and modifying the code is illegal...

as for learning to code/ program/ write whatever you want to call it...

(i prefer to call it software engineer as thats what i do and i get more money then a code monkey ) ..

I'd highly recommend you begin with a more basic language... say scripting, or even (where i started years ago ) BASIC .. easy to learn and can do suprisingly complex things with...

visual basic was a good starting point for me, it's a shame i'm not really progressing too far with other languages, though.